Play Therapy And Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome docx.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY 1
Play therapy and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

PSYCHOLOGY 2
Introduction
The patient who will be provided therapy is a 15 month old girl Missy, who was a
premature infant and had been diagnoses with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). This
can be accredited to substance abuse behaviour in her mother. It has been found that
following her removal from her mother, she had been placed in countless foster homes and is
recently staying with a foster family for almost a year. Though her mother has been to
rehabilitation and wants to take her back, she has developed a strong attachment with her
foster mother and typically appears shy and clingy in presence of others. She also shows
delayed motor development and has not yet developed speech, apart from few words. Hence,
this essay will deal with the play therapy that needs to be provided for addressing
developmental delay in Missy.
Development
NAS refers to withdrawal syndrome occurring in infants soon after their birth, owing
to exposure to dependence drugs. The chemicals and drugs generally pass through the
placenta connecting the mother to the baby, following which if the mother continues
substance abuse within weeks of delivery, the infant becomes dependent during birth
(McQueen & Murphy-Oikonen, 2016). Owing to the fact that the baby is no longer exposed
to the drug after birth, symptoms of withdrawal begin to appear. There is a growing body of
evidence for the fact that children who are born with NAS display an increased likelihood of
being affected with language or speech impairment or developmental delay during early
childhood, in comparison to children who take birth without NAS (Miller et al., 2020).
Moreover, NAS also leads to the onset of particular conditions such as, emotional
disturbance, functional delay, intellectual disability, orthopaedic impairment or specific
learning disability (Fill et al., 2018). Children generally reach developmental mileposts at
their own stride. Minor, provisional delays are typically no reason for apprehension, but a

PSYCHOLOGY 3
continuing delay or manifold delays in attainment of the developmental milestones, as in this
case can be a mark there Missy will face several challenges later in life, if not provided help
immediately.
Under normal circumstances, most children are able to life up their head by three
months, are able to sit without assistance by six months, and generally walk properly prior to
24 months. Likewise, the language learning procedure commences when an infant is able to
communicate hunger by crying. By the age of six months, most infants are capable of
identifying basic language sounds and by they are 12-15 months old they are expected to
speak three or more simple words (Morse & Cangelosi, 2017). Child development generally
persists on a continuum and the development of most kids can be aligned to the middle of the
continuum. A child is most commonly described to be showing atypical development if one
of the two circumstances arise namely, (i) reaching developmental milestone after children of
same age, or (ii) reaching developmental milestone prior to children of same age (Simic &
Rovet, 2017).
It is imperative to focus on children who demonstrate development, slightly different
from the normal course. They are generally referred to as ‘gray area’ kids since they show
typical development in several domains. This prevents them from qualifying to obtaining
services in developmental domains where they face challenges, particularly during the
formative years (Mody, 2019). This calls for the need of monitoring their progress and
particularly supervising the areas where the kids lag behind the peers. Therefore, it can be
suggested that the maternal use of drugs at the time of pregnancy is the most significant
factor that has triggered atypical development in Missy. This can be associated to the
complex interaction between a range of neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine and
glutamate, differential neuronal circuit maturation, and inadequate expression of delta and
kappa opioid receptors (LaRosa & Aponte-Patel, 2019).